Michael Ernest Sweet

Michael Ernest Sweet is a Canadian writer and photographer. His work has appeared in magazines such as Popular Photography, Black and White, The Village Voice, Digital Camera, and The Evergreen Review. Michael is the author of two books of street photography, The Human Fragment, and Michael Sweet’s Coney Island, both from Brooklyn Arts Press. Currently, Michael works as a senior contributor for Photo Life, Canada's preeminent photography magazine. He lives in New York City.

Articles

I’ve written elsewhere about the benefits (and drawbacks) of attending photo events and, generally, I believe it is advantageous to attend. Photo events can be a great place to see what kind of work is trending, make new friends and [...]

Photography During the Pandemic Part 1 By Michael Ernest Sweet The virus gripping our world has ushered in a lot of change in short order. It seems like almost nothing is the same, even though many things are more stable [...]

Street photographers love their gear! We all know that as fact. But what gear is best for the genre? With so much to choose from, I’ve narrowed it down a little for those of you who are just joining this [...]

Photography During the Pandemic Part 2By Michael Ernest SweetIn this second installment of this three-part series on photography during the pandemic, I want to take a look at two more areas where you might make good use of your at-home [...]

Has The Dust Settled? Michael Ernest Sweet If you’re not sure what I am talking about, I’m referring to the dust storm of activity that has characterized the street photography world over the past few years. I dare say it [...]

The Phoblographer Fails To Heed Its Own Advice By Michael Ernest SweetDan Ginn recently wrote a blog post for The Phoblographer all about the haters in street photography. The essence of the post was the following: There is a lot wrong [...]

Photography During the Pandemic Part 3 By Michael Ernest Sweet In this, the final installment of this three-part series on photography during the pandemic, I want to discuss one last thing - making photographs! Let’s not forget this is still [...]

Access Not Excess Is The Key To Great PhotosThe key to great photography is a great camera, right? Wrong. Legendary photographs are surely made with technical perfection, right? Wrong again. Despite the fact that we see many serious amateurs buy [...]

iPhone Street Photography: A Novelty for the Masses or a Game Changer for Everyone? The iPhone has forever changed photography. This is a fact. Today, everyone has a camera in their pocket all the time. Everyone is a photographer. The [...]

The More Thing Change, The More They Remain The Same Michael Ernest Sweet As street photography grew in popularity, more and more camera manufacturers responded. Cameras were designed in an attempt to be more responsive and agile, as well as [...]

Camera brands inspire great passion in photographers and we street photographers are no exception. We all have our beloved brand, don’t we? In some ways I am a devoted Ricoh GR user - as most of my well-known work was [...]

Many of us may be familiar with the concept of found poetry. It is a common enough phenomenon in literature, but for those who are not familiar it’s the idea that one “finds” groupings of words and rearranges them into [...]

There has been a lot of celebration in street photography in the past decade. Let’s face it, the genre is on fire. There’s also been significant discussion regarding the issues and shortcomings faced by street photography, including in my own [...]

The answer to this question may not be easy to pin down. Generally speaking, no, it is not worth the investment. However, a lot depends on why you are pursuing a degree in photography and what you hope to gain [...]

Introduction Street photography is on fire, to say the least. But, is any of it actually any good? More importantly, is any of it of any consequence to the art world? Can street photography survive as a genre in a [...]

Image credit: Jill Freedman When I recently sat down to watch the exclusive Jill Freedman interviews, available here on StreetPhotography.com, I was not really prepared for what followed. Not only did I end up realizing that I absolutely love Freedman’s [...]

Many people run out and buy a camera and then hit the streets. This is okay, and you might even get lucky and make some great photographs, but know that being an artist, at least in the traditional sense, is [...]

Street Photography Rules Are Dumb One of the unfortunate side effects of the street photography craze is the plethora of people trying to make a living from “teaching” the genre to the never-ending train of newbies. The problem is most [...]

Discouraged? Don’t be. Street photography can be a lot of fun and there are still unique and distinctive photographs to be made. However, you’ll want to steer clear of the clichéd aesthetic, costly workshops, and constricting rules. In order to [...]

Pay no attention to street photography rules. Shoot intuitively and live with your photographs for a while before showing them to the world. Your work will be better. Buy a 35mm disposable camera and hit the streets for an afternoon. [...]

The camera is dead. No, I don’t really believe that statement, but let us continue with this sentiment as a “thought experiment”. To be clear, I am not talking about the long-proclaimed death of the compact camera. Surely that corpse [...]

Consistency is good in photography. When I see poor photography, one of the elements that always seems to be missing is consistency. Your work should look like your work and no one else's. One of the ways to achieve consistency [...]

The Masters of Coney Island PhotographyBy Michael Ernest SweetPhotographers have been flocking to Coney Island, New York City’s iconic urban beach, since the late 19th century. Robert Bracklow, known as “daylight Bob” because of his fear of the dark, was [...]

The New Street Photography Recently, I began to look over my rather vast archives of street photography. The question in mind: Is anything here actually worth saving? That may sound a bit melodramatic, but allow me to explain. Now that [...]

Street photography has become such an ambiguous term in the photography world that it nearly lacks any meaning at all. The brilliant and time-honored work of great photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Vivian Maier, Robert Frank, Joseph Koudelka, [...]

Schon DSGN Pen - An Essential for Serious Street Photographers This is part one of a four-part series I will be writing about auxiliary gear that I find indispensable to my street photography practice. Each article in the series will [...]

Interviews

My dear friend, Jonathan Higbee, first brought Stuart Paton to my attention a couple weeks ago. In the days since I've become somewhat captivated with his images. Just take a look for yourself - ah, see, I told you. Great [...]

In this article, I pose ten questions to renowned German street photographer Siegfried Hansen. Siegfried has been on my radar for several years now. We are both curators with the World Street Photography Organization, but I’m a fan too. I [...]

Ten Questions for Mark Cohen For StreetPhotography.com Exclusive By Michael Ernest Sweet If you’re a street photographer and you don’t know of Mark Cohen, be a little bit ashamed. Just a smidge. He’s a true unique and immensely important to [...]

I was immediately drawn to Alberte’s work because his photographs are almost paintings – they are clean, simple, yet also visually rich and powerful. I like it when a street photographer can make good clean shots and show me just [...]

(Interview originally conducted in French) I love the work of Charles Petit and not only because it reminds me of my own work. Yes, we both have an obsession with the close-up. Yes, we both love to shoot stray hands [...]

Juan Cristobal Cobo was born in Cali, Colombia and moved to New York as a teenager. Following thirty years of work as a cinematographer and director, Juan found himself drawn to the still image. He particularly revels in the act [...]

Robert M Johnson’s street photography is some of the earliest street photography I remember, aside from the wildly famous stuff. I discovered his work early on and remember being fascinated by the nostalgia of it all. As Susan Sontag tells [...]

New York photographer Sally Davies is a bit of an anomaly. She’s a woman in what many see as an overwhelmingly male “game” and, if that weren’t enough, she’s a street photographer too, well, sort of. That’s the other side [...]

Spyros Papaspyropoulos has been at street photography for several years now. His work, although constantly evolving, is solidly good work. I see a lot of Bruce Gilden, a hint of Roger Ballen, and even a dash of Robert Frank, from [...]

“I have always known that total freedom was key to achieving an authentic and deep photographic dialogue.” - Gil Rigoulet Gil Rigoulet has spent some forty years behind the lens of his camera and the results are nothing short of [...]

A Conversation with Carl Corey By Michael Ernest Sweet How did you get started in photography? I got my first camera in 1963 at age 9. It was a Kodak Brownie I still have. I liked to collect pictures. Why [...]